Walk into the Wild

My music library was on shuffle this morning and it started playing some Harrod and Funck (The Lion Song). It's been a while so I scoured the net a minute and came across this old performance of H&F singing Walk into the Wild (about Chris McCandless).



Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for Into the Wild was good (and brings its own nostalgia) but I primarily associate the story with this song.

"the west is the best"

to the fates

To The Fates

Grant me a single summer, you lords of all,
  A single autumn, for the fullgrown song,
    So that, with such sweet playing sated,
      Then my heart may die more willing.

The soul, in life robbed of its godly right,
  Rests not, even in Orcus down below;
    Yet should I once achieve my heart's 
      First holy concern, the poem,

Welcome then, O stillness of the shadow world !
  Even if down I go without my
    Music, I shall be satisfied; once
      Like gods I shall have lived, more I need not.

Hölderlin (trans Christopher Middleton)

it's nobody's fault but mine

Blind Willie Johnson (1927)

blues guy in DC

We saw this guy playing the blues on the National Mall.

The Beastie Boys (with The Roots) on Jimmy Fallon

Bon Iver

It wasn't planned. The goal was to hibernate.

Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band, he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus.

This slowly evolved into days filled with twelve-hour recording blocks, breaking only for trips on the tractor into the pines to saw and haul firewood, or for frozen sunrises high up a deer stand. All of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, was suddenly purged into the form of song. The end result is, For Emma, Forever Ago, a nine-song album comprised of what's been dubbed a striking debut by critics and fans alike.

Bon Iver bio

A few different friends have recommended I listen to Bon Iver. Good stuff. There's also an abc interview and a couple higher quality versions of songs (the ones he recorded at the cabin) to play from his site. I must be late to hearing about him, there are already a number of youtube covers.

Beech Spring

More mando from smeatlocker. I like Como Llora Una Estrella the best.

I'm a man who likes to be alone. I'm a man who likes to think alone.

The song Eclipse by The Beta Band was stuck in my head when I woke up this morning (listen on last.fm). Lyrics:

The people asking questions to the people with the answers
The people with the answers ire the people with the questions
So the people with the questions asked the people with the answers
The people with the answers won't tell the people with the questions the answers

So the people with the questions they ask the people with the answers
But the people with the answers won't speak to them
Because the people with the answers give
the people with the questions just a little bit too hard a time to speak to

I'm a man who likes to be alone
I'm a man who likes to think alone
I don't have too many answers, but I got a whole heap of questions
I got a whole heap of questions that I won't hide from you

So the people with the books they went and stood up on the mountain
To get away from the people with no books
The people with the books they started reading on the mountain but
they couldn't see a thing because the sky went dark
I don't know where the cloud cover came from
I'm just sitting here rocking on the station

I don't want to be the type of guy
who lives alone, reading books, and never eats a pizza pie
I don't want to be the type of person
sitting alone with a book on my own

With a book on my own

The people with the questions got together
with the people with the books and left the people with answers out
So the people with the answers started to
make their way over the hill
to meet with people with the questions
and the people with the books

And we all live together on a little round ball
We all sing together when the cuckoo calls

I'm not the type best living alone
Could we live together? Well, I don't know..

I'm not sitting here giving you a lesson
So I'll just keep my mouth shut for the next few minutes

Can't keep quiet for long
I'm a human being
Can't help help singing this song
I'm a human being

You won't listen to me
I'm not an authority

So the people with the answers met the people with the questions
and the people with the books sat down
They finally decided to sit around to talk about their problems
to see if they come up with some answers to meet the questions
and some questions to meet the answers

well, the leaves on the trees are green
[ok we're agreed on that]
and the roads are not very clean
[ok we're agreed on that]
and the food we eat is not very healthy
[ok we're agreed on that]
and the music we make is not particularily good
[ok we're agreed on that]
and the planets sort of revolve around the sun
[ok we're agreed on that]
and the moon is a big ball with nothing on it, and I
don't think anyone's ever been there
[ok, so we're kind of agreed to that, so what are we arguing about?
Well, I don't know..
Ok. so let's get together and smoke that pizza pie]

Some people with a pizza pie made me very high
The people with the questions smile
And the people with the answers lie
They lie

So no pizza for them

"Devil Got My Woman" by Skip James

Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal"

Hip Hop philosophy

Talib Kweli vs. Seneca

What have you done with your life?
Everybody time comes to be embraced by the light
You only scared to die when you ain't livin right, man

Talib Kweli - Good Mourning ^{1 audio}

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death's final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.

Seneca ²

Outkast vs. Montaigne (Erasmus)

I know you'd like to think your shit don't stink
But lean a little bit closer
See that roses really smell like boo-boo
Yeah, roses really smell like boo-boo

Outkast - Roses ³

As it was ingeniously and aptly put by the man who first said it: 'Stercus cuique suum bene olet.' [Everyone's shit smells good to himself.]
...
If we had sound nostrils our shit ought to stink all the more for being our own.

Michel de Montaigne ⁴

charleston style

nice mash-up